The Legacy of Apartheid
Spatial Injustices in South Africa
Arvet efter Apartheid Geografiska orättvisor i Sydafrika
Emma Hänel
Faculty of Health, Science and Technology Environment and Safety Bachelor Thesis 15hp Supervisor: Hilde Ibsen Examiner: Eva Svensson October 2019
Sammanfattning Den snabba takten av urbanisering innebär att städer kommer spela en avgörande roll för hållbar utveckling världen över. Bostadsbrist, ökat tryck på landresurser och försämrad miljö är några av de utmaningar som måste hanteras för att städer ska utvecklas hållbart. Sydafrika och Kapstaden står inför stora utmaningar med ihållande orättvisor och en akut bostadsbrist. Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur det geografika arvet från apartheid påverkar människor i Sydafrika och Kapstaden idag och hur detta hanteras på provinsiell nivå i Western Cape, med Fish Hoek Valley som fallstudie. Studien har influerats av etnografi med fältarbete i form av observationer och samtal kombinerat med media artiklar och ett officiellt provinsiellt dokument, där en kvalitativ innehållsanalys använts på samtliga datainsamlingsmetoder. Resultaten visar på att det provinsiella styret i Western Cape är medveten om den ohållbara utveckling som råder, och har stora visioner för att ändra på detta. Verkligheten i ’the Valley’ visar att de fattiga fortfarande upplever orättvisor baserat på sin hudfärg och vart de bor. Människor uttrycker sin frustration över brutna löften och relationen till det lokala styret är svag. Miljön är inte prioriterad och insatser för förändring är otillräckliga. Den nyliberala riktningen landet tagit verkar ligga bakom svårigheterna att adressera orättvisorna. Slutsatsen är att det bör ske ett större ifrågasättande av nyliberalismens konsekvenser på politisk nivå för att förändring ska kunna ske.
Nyckelord: Urbanisering, hållbar, geografisk rättvisa, nyliberalism, Kapstaden
Abstract The rapid pace of urbanization means that cities will play a crucial role in sustainable development all over the world. Housing shortages, increasing pressures on land resources and a deteriorating environment are some of the challenges that need to be dealt with for cities to develop sustainably. South Africa and Cape Town is facing great challenges with persistent injustices and an acute housing crisis. The aim of this study has been to investigate the effects the unjust geographical legacy of apartheid has on people in Cape Town and South Africa today, how it is experienced and how this is managed on a provincial level in the Western Cape, using the Fish Hoek Valley as a case study. This study has been influenced by ethnography with fieldwork such as observations and conversations combined with media articles and an official provincial document, with all data being analysed through a qualitative content analysis. The results show that the Western Cape Provincial Government is aware of the unsustainable development in the region, and it has great visions to change this. The reality in ‘the Valley’ show that the poor still experiences injustices related to the colour of their skin and where they live. People are expressing their frustration over broken promises and the relationship to the local government is weak. The environment is not a priority and efforts for change are insufficient. The neoliberal path the country has taken appears to be the cause behind the difficulties to address the injustices. The conclusion is that the effects of neoliberalism should be questioned on a political level for real change to happen.
Keywords: Urbanization, sustainable, spatial justice, neoliberalism, Cape Town
Acknowledgements First of all I want to say thank you to my supervisor Hilde Ibsen for introducing me to South Africa and inspiring me to go. This thesis would not have happened without your encouragement and I am very grateful for the guidance and advice you have given me all the way from the start to the finish and for your deep engagement in every part of my research.
Another important person that I would like to thank is my mentor Peter Fenton. Thank you for being a constant support during my whole stay in Kommetjie, for showing me around the Valley and beyond, contributing with important contacts and arranging meetings, and showing sincere interest in my research.
I also want to say thank you to Dee Smythe for taking your time to provide me with material and for contributing with your knowledge about some of the issues in the area.
A warm thank you to Sophia and Nathan for safely guiding me through the streets and homes of Ocean View and Solly for taking me around Masiphumelele. What the three of you are doing for your communities is really inspiring.
I want to thank all of you who opened up about life in some of the communities of the Valley, to those who took their time to sit down for lengthy conversations and those who I met and talked to spontaneously, with some of you even inviting me into your homes. While everything did not fit into this thesis, every meeting and every conversation have deepened my understanding of the current issues and history of the area, and thus directly or indirectly shaped this thesis. I am very grateful to all of you.
Thanks to the International Office at Karlstad University for believing in my research project and granting me with the MFS scholarship, and to SIDA for offering this opportunity.
Lastly I want to say thank you to my family who have supported me during this whole time and for encouraging me to go to South Africa. It has meant a lot to me.
Contents 1. Introduction ...... 1 1.1 Background ...... 1 1.2 Aim and research questions ...... 2 1.3 Outline of thesis ...... 2 2. Previous research and theory ...... 3 2.1 Neoliberal City ...... 3 2.2 Spatial Justice ...... 5 2.3 Environmental Justice ...... 6 3. Research Design ...... 8 3.1 Study area ...... 8 3.1.1 Cape Town ...... 8 3.1.2 The Valley ...... 8 3.2 Methodology ...... 10 3.2.1 Ethnography ...... 10 3.2.2 Co-creation / Living knowledge ...... 11 3.2.3 Messy research ...... 12 3.3 Data collection ...... 12 3.4 Data analysis ...... 13 3.5 Ethical considerations ...... 16 4. Results ...... 18 4.1 Persistent apartheid geography ...... 18 4.1.1 Policy framework (PSDF) and challenges ...... 18 4.1.2 Unsustainable urban growth ...... 20 4.1.3 Green Cape – ecological transition ...... 21 4.1.4 Living Cape – settlement transition ...... 22 4.1.5 Smart growth ...... 24 4.2 Realities: Spatial injustice and segregation ...... 25 4.2.1 Housing need and broken promises ...... 26 4.2.2 Persistent Environmental and Social Risks ...... 27 4.2.3 Lack of trust ...... 28 4.2.4 A quest for more participation ...... 29 4.2.5 New solutions and a better conscience ...... 29 4.2.6 Missed opportunities and business as-usual ...... 30 5. Discussion ...... 32 5.1 Methods discussion ...... 32 5.2 Discussion of results ...... 33 6. Conclusions ...... 38 References ...... 39
1. Introduction
1.1 Background The world is becoming more urbanized and today more than half of its people reside in cities (World Wide Fund for Nature [WWF], 2019). By 2030, it is estimated that 5 billion people will call themselves urban dwellers (United Nations [UN], n.d.a). Cities are said by the UN to be the places where the struggle for sustainability around the world “will either be won or lost” (United Nations [UN], 2018).
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development have generated 17 Sustainable Development Goals which are geared toward ending poverty and combatting social issues in general, while also protecting the planet and minimising the risks generated by climate change (United Nations [UN], n.d.b). One of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) are “Sustainable Cities and Communities” (goal 11), which seeks to make cities better places to live in by focusing on inclusion and safety while also safeguarding the environment and making sure the cities become more resilient (UN, n.d.a). Basic services and proper housing are mentioned as some of the challenges that need to be dealt with. Despite advancements in reducing the number of people living in slums, 1 billion still live in these conditions (United Nations [UN], n.d.c). Population growth within cities as well as migration from the rural areas has countered further progress. Cities are also becoming less dense, with implications for the environment. Urban growth needs to be adequately handled if urbanization is to be more sustainable (UN, n.d.c).
According to UN Habitat (2012b), Africa is one of the continents were the most dramatic urbanization will happen. Effective urban planning is seen as necessary to deal with this. The consequences of this rapid urbanization is already a reality in many places in the world, with some of the effects being housing shortages, poor infrastructure, with poverty and unemployment on the rise as well as issues with crime and safety. People’s health and environment is deteriorating and effects of climate change are beginning to be felt. The rapid urbanization is also one of the causes to more people competing for access to land and its resources (UN Habitat, 2012a). According to UN Habitat (2012a), to reach the Sustainable Development Goal 11 and other development goals globally it is critical to solve the issues related to land.
This year, 25 years have passed since apartheid was officially abolished in South Africa and democracy took its place. Despite this the promise that was made in the early 1990s has, according to the Nelson Mandela Foundation, not been delivered during these years of democracy (‘After 25 years of democracy, no delivery on promise’, 2019). The country has changed a lot, but still apartheid shows its legacy socially and economically and a “better life for all”, the promise ANC made in 1994, has yet to be realised (Graham, 2019). South Africa is said to be the most unequal country on the planet according to some measures, with many people still living in areas based on their ethnicity, as was the case before democracy. Protests regarding a range of services like housing, jobs and governance are commonplace in the country today.
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According to McDonald (2008: xviii), Cape Town is probably South Africa’s most uneven city, as well as the most segregated from a spatial perspective. He goes even further, claiming that there might not be another city in the whole world that is more spatially uneven than Cape Town. The number of people living in deep poverty amounts to one third of Cape Town’s population (McDonald 2008: xvii-xviii). These people often live in houses that are overcrowded or temporary. Cape Town experiences a massive housing backlog and according to McDonald (2008: 145-146) this is the largest infrastructure challenge in the city. Low- income housing delivery is not moving fast enough. Except from the lack of housing the quality and location of low-income houses is also a problem (McDonald, 2008: 148).
Cape Town is one of the African cities that are working towards building a more resilient city by taking part in a global project called 100 Resilient Cities, initiated by the Rockefeller Foundation (Morlin-Yron, 2017). Generating more jobs is seen as an important strategy for Cape Town to become more resilient because of its important role in combatting poverty. The city’s infrastructure needs to be renewed and measures have to be taken to handle the heatwaves and the floods that have been affecting the city. Cape Town’s more than 200 informal settlements also need to build resilience (100 Resilient Cities, 2019). People living there suffer more from shocks and stresses than others and the City is taking measures to increase resilience in these settlements.
1.2 Aim and research questions The aim of this study is to explore how the unjust spatial patterns inherited by apartheid plays out and how it is handled and experienced in South Africa and the Western Cape, by using the Fish Hoek Valley, Cape Town as a case study. The research questions are therefore as follows:
How is the Western Cape Government planning to transform the province’s unsustainable spatial pattern?
How does spatial injustice play out in ‘the Valley’?
How are people in ‘the Valley’ experiencing the current spatial pattern?
1.3 Outline of thesis After the introduction to the problem the thesis goes on to describe previous research and theory, using neoliberalism in South Africa and Cape Town as a way to understand the current situation. Spatial justice and environmental justice serve as theories. The subsequent chapter is Methodology, starting off with a description of the study area, followed by an explanation of the methods used, how I collected data and how I analysed it. This is followed by the Results chapter, which is divided into Vision and Realities, with the former accounting for the results obtained from the analysed document, and the latter from media articles, observations and conversations. A discussion of the methods and results follows, where the chosen theories and previous research are used to try to explain the results. The thesis ends with the conclusions drawn from this study.
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2. Previous research and theory
2.1 Neoliberal City In her book Transforming Cape Town Besteman (2008: 11) explains that the specific time when democracy came to South Africa made it difficult to address poverty in the country. This was a period when many communist countries turned to neoliberal capitalism after the fall of the Soviet Union. Addressing poverty by redistribution as the African National Congress (ANC) had pledged was not consistent with the ideas that took a hold around the globe. These ideas were the direct opposite to those initially proposed by the ANC. Government services and redistribution should decrease, the economy should no longer be managed by the state, and privatization should get a prime position (Besteman, 2008: 11). Marais (2011: 97-99) in his work South Africa pushed to the Limit: The Political Economy of Change describes how the fact that ANC did not have a real economic policy up until its unbanning in 1990, made the party all the more susceptible to the influences of neoliberalism. From initially talking about ‘growth through redistribution’, external pressures soon made ANC divert to a more neoliberal path (Marais, 2011: 100-101).
Defining neoliberalism can be difficult because it is a mix of ideology, policies and practices (Marais, 2011: 134). There is not one way to describe neoliberalism (McDonald, 2008: 72). How neoliberalism plays out differs based on where it is happening, and when it is happening (Marais 2011; 134). Pinson and Journel (2016), although well aware of it contestability, explains neoliberalism as
“the set of intellectual streams, policy orientations and regulatory arrangements that strive to extend market mechanisms, relations, discipline and ethos to an ever- expanding spectrum of spheres of social activities, and all this through relying on strong State intervention.” (Pinson & Journel, 2016: 137) In South Africa, ANC applied neoliberal policies to grow the economy, using domestic fiscal constraint and foreign investment (Besteman, 2008: 2). However, unemployment, poverty and inequality have grown alongside the growing of the economy, with 40% of the black (people not classified as white) population sinking further into poverty while only the wealthier and higher educated blacks benefit from new economic opportunities. In other words, taking part in the global capitalist economy under the structure of neoliberalism has had the impact of furthering the divides between the wealthy and the poor (Besteman, 2008: 16). The wealthy classes are more multiracial, but the poorest areas are still black. A problem is that the inequalities and poverty generated by neoliberalism is seen as something normal, contrary to how the inequalities and injustices under apartheid were viewed (Besteman, 2008: 17). There is no global moral that says that inequalities generated by neoliberalism are wrong as in the case of apartheid. Theodore (2017) describes neoliberalism’s way of furthering inequalities in saying:
“…whereas neoliberal ideology implies that self-regulating markets will generate an optimal allocation of investments and resources, neoliberal political practice has generated pervasive market failures, new forms of social polarization and a dramatic intensification of uneven spatial development at all spatial scales.” (Theodore, 2017: 44-45)
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Marais (2011: 110) describes how the state (in South Africa) did not become weaker because of neoliberalism. The role of the state just changed to serve neoliberal interests instead of the social. The ideological ground that ANC is standing on is shattered (Marais, 2011: 4-5). Some sections in the ANC with a lot of power have tended to sometimes favour market-oriented policies, and as a result, policies for enhancing social justice have gotten less support.
In his book World City Syndrome: Neoliberalism and inequality in Cape Town McDonald (2008: 1-2) considers Cape Town being a world city but for other reasons than the world city hypothesis sets out. McDonald believes that being labelled a World City fails to make Cape Town’s capital accumulation and inequalities understandable. He thinks that Cape Town “is a world city because it is a capitalist city. More importantly, it is a world city because it is a neoliberal city” (McDonald, 2008: 6). According to McDonald (2008: 69), not every policy that is implemented in South Africa is neoliberal in character. However, neoliberalism influences most of the policymaking, which is especially apparent in the cities (McDonald, 2008: 69), a path taken by both the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the African National Congress (ANC) (McDonald 2008: xix), even if DA have been more forward about it (McDonald, 2008: 132).
McDonald (2008: 135) explains that when reforming Cape Town after apartheid the aim for redistribution put forth by the ANC and democratic movement organizations was difficult to fulfil for local government because of the big influence on decision making that ratepayers associations and local capital had. In a way, local government became weak as a result of the restructuring (McDonald, 2008: 135, 100). The ANC have had to do trade-offs both politically and ideologically which have watered down the redistribution agenda (McDonald, 2008: 135). At the same time McDonald (2008: 100) considers the local government to be strong in how it is capable of taking a neoliberal approach to governance. The local government is now important in Cape Town’s aspiration of becoming a competitive city while turning its back on racial-welfarism.
The residential segregation that formed under apartheid is today consolidated by market- driven development strategies and the restrictions that neoliberalism have put on public spending (McDonald, 2008: 153). It means that the suburbs and CBDs have received enormous investments and that low-income families instead have got no choice but to live on the urban periphery, in some cases close to busy traffic, and in houses that is lacking in standard. McDonald (2008: 133) describes how these enormous investments in buildings that have been done, aimed at consumption for the wealthy and for business to expand, have had the effect of changing the spatial shape of Cape Town. However, this has not helped to bring the poor out of poverty, on the contrary, it has consolidated the inequalities inherited from apartheid. This has in turn meant a push towards privatizing services as well as obtaining cost recovery from those already struggling to get by.
According to McDonald (2008: 212) urban planning in Cape Town have seen more influence from the private sector. The partnerships between municipalities and private business in the City Improvement Districts (CIDs), where the private sector steps in when municipalities cannot manage providing services adequately themselves (McDonald, 2008: 210), have meant
4 that private interests have come to influence the development of the city (McDonald, 2008: 212). In Cape Town this has created private sector enclaves where the property owners association have come to decide over service levels and rates levies, and “where public spaces become private enclaves of privilege” (McDonald, 2008: 211).
2.2 Spatial Justice In his book Seeking Spatial Justice Soja (2010) argue that the geography of justice, which can also be called the “spatiality” of justice, is “an integral and formative component of justice itself, a vital part of how justice and injustice are socially constructed and evolve over time” (Soja, 2010: 1). Soja (2010: 2-3) thinks that the spatial or geographic perspective on justice has had a back seat position in relation to the use of social and historical perspectives, but that he can see that this is now changing. He is talking about a spatial turn that influences almost all human sciences. However, Soja (2010: 18) believes that there is still more of a focus on how social processes influence on spatiality instead of the other way around. He stresses how these processes should get equal importance. He believes that the spatiality of (in)justice have an equal impact on society and social life as social processes impact and mould the spatiality of (in)justice (Soja, 2010: 5).
The term spatial justice was rarely used during the twentieth century (Soja, 2010: 4-5). There seem to be a resistance to using it and instead similar terms have been applied that addresses (in)justice related to geography. Soja (2010: 5) points out that the search for spatial justice are not a replacement for other forms of seeking justice (such as environmental, social, economic). He states that “not only does the social comprise the spatial, it is also comprised by it” (Soja, 2010: 5) and also that “everything that is social (justice included) is simultaneously and inherently spatial, just as everything spatial, at least with regard to the human world, is simultaneously and inherently socialized” (Soja, 2010: 5).
Because urban areas contains the majority of the world’s population, it is vital to examine spatial (in)justice through the urban context and condition (Soja, 2010: 32). Urbanization and its injustices mainly develop in and from urban agglomerations (Soja, 2010: 6). However, globalization has also resulted in urbanization leaving its mark on areas outside the cities. Urbanization is spread all over the world and is having an impact on all geographical levels. This way of looking at urbanization in a broader way can according to Soja (2010: 6-7) be related to the struggles over the right to the city which is about human rights in urban places, an idea originating from Henri Lefebvre. This idea has in the past years seen a massive revival in social movements on all levels, from the local to the global. The struggles for spatial justice and democratic rights to urban space have here come together.
The surrounding geographies can influence on people’s lives in a positive way, but it may just as well have a negative impact on it (Soja, 2010: 19). It is important to see space as something more than a mere background onto which events happens. According to Soja,
“…the geographies in which we live can intensify and sustain our exploitation as workers, support oppressive forms of cultural and political domination based on race, gender, and nationality, and aggravate all forms of discrimination and injustice” (Soja, 2010: 19).
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Also, because people take part in creating the geographies in which they live, or those with power create them for those with less, geographies can be changed to become more positive (Soja, 2010: 19). This also means that there will be those who want change, and those who want status quo. Soja (2010: 20) considers seeking spatial justice as an important political goal but at the same time a difficult one to achieve considering how some benefit from the current geographies and tries to work against change.
According to Soja (2010: 47), spatial discrimination is most apparent in the form of distributive inequalities, and many different actors take part in producing them through their decisions. Since the emergence of the industrial capitalist city these decisions have shaped the geography of cities and mostly benefitted the already privileged (Soja, 2010: 48). An awareness of how these discriminations based on geography are not natural but socially constructed is important for this to be questioned, and subsequently for change to happen. However, this is not recognised enough, and inequalities are instead accepted as normal for life in the cities.
Soja (2010: 55) is talking about geographies of choice and geographies of privilege. According to Soja, segregation does not always have to be seen as wholly unjust. In some cases people chose to segregate, for example because of a shared culture. The problem is when this is not chosen but imposed on people from above as a way to assert control and subjugate people, as was the case with apartheid but also the way racial ghettos has been formed. It is also a problem “when it emerges less intentionally from below as an oppressive by-product of unregulated “freedoms” of choice operating within persistent spatial structures of advantage” (Soja, 2010, 55).
The spatial justice perspective is very applicable to the South African context, explicitly shown in how Soja uses South Africa and apartheid as one of his examples of unjust geographies, stating that “The story of apartheid revolves paradigmatically around struggles over geography” (Soja, 2010: 39), with its territorially segregated areas built hierarchically with the use of legislation, ideological rationalization and aggressive politics (Soja, 2010: 39). Urban areas in South Africa are still living with this legacy.
2.3 Environmental Justice Walker (2012) in his book Environmental Justice: Concepts, Evidence and Politics describes environmental justice to be about the environment and its relationship to social difference, how they are intertwined (Walker, 2012: 1). The difference lies in some people having an environment that benefits them and enhances their life, while others experience the opposite – an environment which contains risks while having a lack of access to the benefits and resources the environment brings. Uneven consumption of the environments resources, where some have to pay the price for what others have consumed, is also part of environmental justice, as well as how people do not have the same power to impact on decision making processes that concerns the environment.
Environmental justice has gone from being quite narrow to include many different injustices related to a range of environmental problems (Walker, 2012: 2-3). It is no longer just about the siting of polluting industries and waste-dumps in close proximity to black people and/or
6 poor people, as was mainly the case when the movement started in the US in the 1980s. Different kinds of groups that can be disproportionally affected by environmental factors have expanded, with not only race and class but also for example age and gender being factors to experiencing injustices related to the environment. Here vulnerability and not only distribution becomes important, with for example children being more sensitive to different kinds of pollution (Walker, 2012: 46), while women can have a higher sensitivity to pollution compared to men (Walker, 2012: 68). Poor people and certain ethnic groups can also be more vulnerable to airborne pollution (Walker, 2012: 106).
To put environmental justice in a South African context, the environment has historically been valued higher than most of its peoples, that is to say, nature and the protection of it being more important than providing access to environmental goods for the country’s black population (Africans, coloureds and Asians) (McDonald, 2002: 1-2). This was true not only under the apartheid years but also the colonial years prior to that. During apartheid environmental issues was therefore often seen as something mainly concerning whites. The black population fought against the oppression and the country’s environmental policies were used against them as a group. The grip of apartheid being loosened in the late 80s to early 90s changed this and environmental issues became relevant to a larger part of the population. Environmental justice emerging as a concept was a big contributor to this. The African National Congress (ANC) win in the election of 1994 contributed further to this path, with the ruling party expressing the links between environmental issues and social issues.
Soja (2010: 52) in his work on spatial injustice also brings up environmental justice, and he describes that initially, the environmental justice movement was more directly focused on racial discrimination in relation to the distributive injustices of environmental hazards and pollution, with the spatiality of the injustices taking a backseat role. However, with time environmental justice helped to shed a light on the spatiality of injustice and to link the bias in location with discrimination based on race, gender and class. There have been collaborations between movements for environmental justice and other justice movements such as those revolving around spatial justice and democratic rights to the city because of some shared causes, however there have been some disagreements (Soja, 2010: 52-53). Environmental justice movements have for example been blamed for taking a very local approach to injustices. Even with their similarities, Soja (2010: 53) thinks that environmental and spatial justice should still be somewhat separated from each other and he argues that it might be better to see environmental justice as a sub-field to spatial justice.
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3. Research Design
3.1 Study area
3.1.1 Cape Town Before World War II, segregation in Cape Town was not as severe as compared to other cities in South Africa, with some areas still being multiracial (Besteman, 2008: 47). However, after World War II this started to change and in 1957 the implementation of the Group Areas Act furthered segregation, with only whites allowed to live in all of the city’s southern suburbs, with lower Wynberg being the exception. In 1985, Cape Town became the most segregated city in the country after forcibly removing 150 000 people from their place of residence, the majority of them coloured. All but 9% of coloureds lived in their designated areas with many ending up in communities on the Cape Flats. Highways, open areas, railroad lines and power stations worked as a buffer for the whites to be separated from these communities.
Up until World War II in Cape Town, Africans movement was restricted and controlled by law, their opportunities to own properties likewise (Besteman, 2008: 47). Hence, the number of Africans living in Cape Town was relatively low, and this pattern continued when it was decided in 1954 that the Western Cape would be a Coloured Labor Preference Area (Besteman, 2008: 48). The relatively few Africans in the city lived in Cape Town’s oldest township, Langa, as well as Nyanga and Guguletu. Still, many thousands of Africans came to the city illegally, living where they could find space, in backyard shacks and in between the rental units that was placed in the townships.
There was a severe lack of housing for blacks (everyone not classified as white) resulting from the combination of policies of Group Areas, the controlled migration and the Coloured Labor Preference (Besteman, 2008: 48). This was made worse for Africans because their official recognition as legitimate residents of the metropolitan area was denied. Without any provision of housing for Africans in the 1960s and 1970s, Africans had to squeeze themselves in to the already existing settlements of Langa, Nyanga and Guguletu, to build squatter camps in different parts of the city, and building their own shacks in the backyards of the townships.
Most people in Cape Town today still live segregated from each other based on race (Besteman, 2008: 48). The majority of residents in the southern suburbs are white and wealthy, while the townships and informal settlements in the south-eastern parts of the city are home to Africans, coloureds and Indians living under often poor circumstances. Not many of them have had the means to move in to the areas that was previously only for whites, and building low-income housing in the middle and upper-class neighbourhoods does not seem to be on the political agenda (Besteman, 2008: 49). Besteman (2008: 49) states: “In stark contrast to the rainbow nation image so popular with foreigners, the slow pace of residential desegregation in Cape Town is one of the city’s most notable features” (Besteman, 2008: 49).
3.1.2 The Valley The Fish Hoek Valley, in short ‘The Valley’, can be described as a microcosm of South Africa (Bray, Gooskens, Kahn, Moses, Seekings, 2010: 23). The Valley is situated south of the Table Mountain, on the Cape Peninsula.
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Most of this area was declared ‘White’ during apartheid, which means that only people considered white were allowed to live here except for domestic workers and those working at the farms (Bray et.al, 2010: 24). Apart from this, one area of the Valley was designated for ‘coloured people’, originally from different parts of the Peninsula but forcibly removed during the 1960s and 1970s to an isolated place who got the name Ocean View (Bray et. al, 2010: 24), the name being somewhat ironic since many had to move from the ocean views of their hometowns (Living Hope, n.d). Even though this coloured community made up almost half of the Valleys population in the 1990s, they all lived in this small corner of the Valley, while whites occupied all other spaces, and with just a few Africans living in the bush or at the property of their employer (Bray et.al, 2010: 24).
The Valley and the communities in it expanded in the 1980s and 1990s, and the Valley in itself became more of a suburb to Cape Town. This meant that in a period of 20 years the population grew so much that it doubled in size. Already existing communities such as Fish Hoek, Noordhoek and Kommetjie grew, and new ones developed (Bray et.al, 2010: 24) like Capri and San Michel (Bray et.al, 2010: 1). This drew more and more people from the middle-class to live in the area, with suburbs situated from the Atlantic side of The Valley to the other in False Bay (Bray et. al. 2010: 24).
In 1991 a new community named Masiphumelele was established in The Valley, a semi- formal settlement that was meant to house the Africans of the Valley (Bray et.al, 2010: 24). Immigration from Eastern Cape and Cape Town has made this settlement grow rapidly with the years. Today, whites are the smallest group in the Valley but are still occupying most of this area, with coloured people mostly still residing in Ocean View and Africans in Masiphumelele. The spatial legacy of apartheid therefore lives on in the Valley.
There have been some improvements in The Valley since the end of apartheid, with many people now having basic necessities like electricity and a flushing toilet as well as getting their refuse collected (Bray et.al, 2010: 24). Through taxes there is a redistribution to the poor from the rich, which pays for the services provided by the municipality. Some things have not changed though and in Masiphumelele water is only accessible from a tap outside, and while some live in brick-houses most people living there does so in shacks. True for both Masiphumelele and Ocean View is the overcrowded homes shared by many more people than intended.
Something that stands out with the Valley is how close together the different communities are, the white areas, the coloured community of Ocean View and the African community of Masiphumelele, when compared to the City of Cape Town as a whole (Bray et.al, 2010: 27). Also, compared to how it generally looks in South Africa where Africans constitute the majority, coloured people make up the majority in the Valley as it does in the Western Cape in general, but there are also much more white people living in the Valley compared to the whole of Cape Town.
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3.2 Methodology
3.2.1 Ethnography This work has been influenced by ethnography. According to O’Reilly (2005: 1), to define ethnography is not an easy task because it is not used in the same ways in all disciplines and traditions. Based on other author’s explanations, O’Reilly (2005: 2-3) summarizes ethnography to at a minimum be research that is iterative-inductive, using a number of methods, repeated and direct interactions with people in their own daily setting while observing events, listening and asking questions while afterwards writing this down (richly) without reducing the experiences. The function of theory and the role that the researcher has are acknowledged, and humans are seen as both object and subject.
Qualitative research favours the inductive approach over a deductive, meaning that theory comes after data (O’Reilly, 2005: 26). O’Reilly describes an inductive approach as starting your research with an open mind while trying to avoid biases. Despite this ethnographers are becoming more accepting of the fact that you cannot go out in the field without any previous thoughts and theories in mind. The researcher can instead be open about preconceived ideas and read in about previous theories so to know which has already been shaped on a subject of research. In this way one can go on with the research with some knowledge while still being open to the unexpected (O’Reilly, 2005: 26-27). O’Reilly prefer to use the term iterative- inductive, instead of simply inductive, because it better explains how the research not only moves forward but also forward and back simultaneously.
Flexibility and fluidity is according to O’Reilly (2005: 27) important in ethnography and most qualitative research. This does not mean that there is no use of a research design, but it needs to be open to changes. Preparation is a way to handle issues of confusion and lack of purpose that usually appears at the beginning of an ethnographic study.
For Davies (2008: 3) there is a need for reflexivity in research. Reflexivity, according to Davies “means a turning back on oneself, a process of self-reference.” (Davies, 2008: 4). Researchers are studying something that is outside of themselves while they at the same time have some level of connection to what they are researching (Davies, 2008: 3-4). This leads to questions about how the researcher with his/her presence may have an influence on how the results will turn out, and therefore reflexivity is needed. Reflexivity in ethnographic research can be seen as particularly important because the researcher is to a high degree engaged in the social and cultural world of those that are taking part in the research.
Ethnographers are influenced in their choosing of topic and participants for the study by their own history, but the disciplinary and wider sociocultural context also have an effect on the path the research is taking (Davies, 2008: 5). To relate this to my own research I can say that the research topic was very much shaped by my own interest in justice issues, and what I had learned in previous university courses. However, I was also open to changes, which proved to be important since the initial topic did not work out.
As Besteman (2008: 99) describes, being a white researcher doing fieldwork in a city like Cape Town, with apartheid still casting its shadows over the city, is not uncomplicated.
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Besteman writes about how aware she was of her being white and her felt need to oversee what she was saying and doing. This constant awareness of one’s own skin colour is also what I experienced, especially when walking through the coloured and black townships, where the presence of white people is not that common. Besteman (2008: 102-103) also account for how being American can generate negative reactions, where she and her students had to answer for the United States impact on South Africa and the world. I did not experience that me being Swedish was a problem. People´s reaction to my citizenship was more one of curiosity than one of prejudice and condemnation, but then Sweden and the United States play very different roles on the international arena.
Qualitative research, including ethnography, does not have the aim to make the results representative because it is more concerned with depth (O’Reilly, 2005: 225-226). However, to some extent it is also a desire amongst qualitative researchers to make the results work in other contexts and they may be able to apply, or transfer, the results to other groups of people. Theory can also work as a way to make the results applicable to other contexts than the one studied.
O’Reilly (2005: 226) thinks that ethnography manages questions about validity better than quantitative studies because the people that partake in the research can let you know if you interpret correctly or not. Also, because it is iterative-inductive, you are always going back and forth between the research questions and the collected data and can change the research questions if needed.
When doing survey research, reliability is about if the results of your study could turn out the same way if someone else, using the same methods, did it (O’Reilly, 2005: 227). In ethnography, because of the researcher being so involved in the whole research process, you have to be reflexive about how you interact in the field and theorize the relationships if you can. O’Reilly (2005: 227) thinks that replicability hinges on a view of the world and what is happening in it as something objective, instead of it being about people viewing and experiencing things differently, as the social constructionist theory accounts for.
3.2.2 Co-creation / Living knowledge Living knowledge is a method that seeks to involve communities and civil society organisations (CSOs) in research, in a range of sciences (Living Knowledge, n.d). It is a form of collaboration between academia and civil society (Facer & Enright, 2016: 10-11). The idea is to expand knowledge by obtaining the living knowledge inside the communities and combine them with the knowledge and experiences of researchers. It is a way of learning together, and including people in all stages of the research process (Living Knowledge, n.d.). The goal is to take part in achieving social change by the co-creation of knowledge. People gain scientific knowledge but also contribute with their knowledge, building knowledge in a reciprocal way between researchers and civil society. This means that a greater understanding between them can be better achieved. It is about acknowledging everyone’s stories as valuable, because without these, there is a chance that you will miss out on important aspects that could generate change (Facer & Enright, 2016: 11). It is also a way to expand the co-
11 operation amongst experts, in this way evolving the expertise while also furthering the interest of participatory processes (Living Knowledge, n.d.).
3.2.3 Messy research Clark, Brody, Dillon, Hart and Heimlich (2007) in their paper The messy process of research: dilemmas, process, and critique brings forth their view that quality research is messy, but that this is rarely looked properly upon (Clark et al., 2007: 111-112). The authors describe how the less successful parts of the research get brushed over when it is written up. At the same time handling this is seen by the authors to be one of the more generative phases of what one is doing.
Both other people’s earlier work as well as one’s own helps you to develop the craft to do quality research (Kritzer, 2008: 1). Kritzer says that “dealing with the unexpected and being able to cope with the messiness is a common feature of “craftwork” “(Kritzer, 2008: 1). The different crafts generate different kinds of messiness. Maybe you realise that you have asked the wrong question(s), or maybe something else than what you have focused on turns out to be more relevant to study (Kritzer, 2008: 2-4). Questions can also become irrelevant if circumstances changes.
3.3 Data collection Initially, the plan was to conduct interviews with women in Ocean View, in combination with analysis of one or more documents and observations in relation to media articles. However interviews proved difficult to organise and the research topic did not seem to resonate with the community, thus a plan B had to be used. The scope was widened to the whole Fish Hoek Valley and the focus was shifted from a gender perspective on environmental justice in the Ocean View community to a case study regarding spatial (in)justice in the Valley. This topic also meant that I did not have to rely on many interviews, with conversations and direct observations of the living conditions in the different communities in the Valley being sufficient when combined with media articles and an official document.
The Western Cape Provincial Spatial Development Framework (PSDF) from 2014 was chosen as the official document to analyse to obtain a vision of spatial development in the area. The main reason for choosing this document was because of its specific spatial focus. The Western Cape also has some characteristics that differ from the rest of South Africa so this provincial framework seemed more suitable to use than for example the National Development Plan (NDP) (2012), which was also considered. However since the PSDF sometimes refer back to the NDP the document has been used to some extent. The same goes for the document on economic development in the Western Cape, OneCape2040 (2012) and the State of the Environment Outlook Report for the Western Cape Province (2013).
Media articles were chosen based on how well they brought up issues related to land and housing and what implications location and socioeconomic status has for people’s lives, and also how development in the Valley is described. Most of the articles were focused on the communities in the Valley or the Valley as a whole, but a few of them concerns the situation in the whole of Cape Town. A combination of words was used in searching for articles, such as housing, protests, injustice, Ocean View, Masiphumelele, Cape Town. Some articles about
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Masiphumelele were also found by searching directly on GroundUps page. This was not to intentionally favour this particular web page, instead it turned out to be where many relevant articles were to be found. Moreover, GroundUp has a special focus on human rights in vulnerable communities (GroundUp, 2019) which contribute to important grassroots narratives, meaning that more voices could be added to the conversations. Most articles (irrespective of source) were found on the web.
Two planned conversations was conducted, with one Ocean View resident and one Kommetjie resident. Conversations were also made with City officials, a property owner and an informant but these are not used in the results because they mainly served as background information to understand the area and its issues. People were selected for conversations based on the contacts of my mentor. Beyond this, conversations were made while walking around in especially Ocean View.
The observations were not participative and did not follow a certain group of people over a long period of time. The observations were more direct and scattered around the Valley, most intentionally in Ocean View and Masiphumelele. The observations were mainly used to understand the area and its spatially unjust geographies, and they were mainly open-ended, meaning that I was trying to understand the whole context of living in these areas, instead of only focusing on what would answer to the research topic. Both in Ocean View and Masiphumelele, observations were done by walking through parts of the communities with locals, but also with my mentor (who is familiar with these communities). In the company of a local, it was easier to approach people while also getting information as we walked along.
More than simply being about me as a researcher observing people and making conversations about my interests, this study have been more collaborative and from my point of view (hopefully also from the communities/participants point of view), it has been a give and take, the participants contributing to gaining me knowledge more than the other way around. The view has been that no one knows the community better than those living in it. This approach has also meant meeting the communities together with other researchers with different approaches, in this way expanding the understanding of the different problems and life stories that people in the community have, and obtaining a more nuanced picture of how life is living in this community.
The data collection was a continuous process, for example more media articles were collected when it seemed necessary. This was especially the case when the scope was extended beyond Ocean View. Also, newly produced articles that had not been released when the first span of media articles was collected but that was important to make the results up-to-date, had to be added.
3.4 Data analysis All sources of data have been analysed through a qualitative content analysis, using Lundman and Graneheim’s (2012) chapter “Kvalitativ innehållsanalys” (Qualitative content analysis) in the book Tillämpad kvalitativ forskning inom hälso- och sjukvård (Applied qualitative research in healthcare).
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Qualitative content analysis is a method used to interpret texts of various forms and is commonly used in the field of humanities and behavioural and nursing sciences (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 187). The method can be made to suit different purposes and also works well for researchers on different levels of experience (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 199). These are also the reasons why this method was chosen. This study contains various forms of data and using the same method for analysis seemed appropriate. It also seemed like a suitable method because of me lacking experience as a researcher. The approach has been inductive, meaning that analysing the data have been done with an open mind (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 188).
In qualitative research the truth is seen as something subjective, what people themselves considers to be true (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 188). Context is considered important and there is an acknowledgement of the complexity of the world and a view of it as constructed. This means that when analysing a text, the context needs to always be kept in mind. From an epistemological point of view, qualitative content analysis relies on closeness to what one is studying (analysing) while also combining this with distance.
The focal point is to find similarities and differences in the data you have collected, which will generate categories and themes (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 189). The categories stand for what is more explicitly expressed in the text, while the themes contain the more hidden message.
Because there is not one truth but different ways to interpret your data, there can be questions about the credibility of the results (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 196-197). For example, the researcher carries with him/her a prior knowledge and experiences relating to the topic that is being studied, which could have an influence on the results of the analysis. Validity reflects the truthfulness of the results and a way to obtain it can be to let someone experienced have a look at your analysis (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 197-198). This is however not always possible, as in this case. Being transparent about the process of analysis is another way to enhance validity because people can then make their own opinion about the validity of your analysis. This is also important for showing the reliability of your analysis and for the transferability of the results, where accounting for the people you have chosen, data collection and analysis as well as the surrounding context makes the evaluation of the transferability of the results easier (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 198-199).
The analysis of these different sources of data followed the same process, with the only difference being that the notes from the conversations and observations first had to be written down and made into a text. Following the process explained by Lundman & Graneheim (2012: 193), the analyse process started with reading the different sources of data to get an overall impression of what it was all about. The next step was to select units of meaning, which can occur in the form of words, sentences or a whole paragraph (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 190). These should be related in some form. In this case they were picked out based on how they brought up justice issues, social issues in general, the environment and sustainability (mainly related to land), urban growth, housing and land. Regarding the PSDF (2014), sections that exclusively brought up the rural conditions were left out, as were issues
14 regarding climate change and energy. There have not been a focus on water, waste and transports but they are relatable in one way or another to some of the issues that is relevant to the research topic so they figure indirectly.
The following step meant condensing and abstracting the units of meaning to make them easier to work with but in a way that keeps the essential message intact (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 190). These condensed meanings were then coded, which is a way to name and abstract the condensed meanings (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 190). The codes were then put into categories, with those related sharing category (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 191). This was not an easy process because a code sometimes fit into more than one category which made it sometimes difficult to decide upon categories. In the end this made them quite general, at least with the document.
The provincial document generated ten categories and two themes which are “Unsustainable development” and “A Sustainable future“.
Document Categories Themes Economic factors Social factors Ecological factors Unsustainable development System deficiencies Capabilities Economic opportunities Social development Ecological sustainability A sustainable future Inward growth System changes
Most of the categories from the analysis of media, conversations and observations were the same or similar, even though the media articles generated more categories. Therefore the themes contain the categories that came out of all three of these sources.
Fourteen categories were found in the media articles, which generated four themes; “Persistent challenges”, “Relationship between top and bottom”, “Forces counteracting change”and “Efforts for change”.
Media articles Categories Themes Spatial injustice Insufficient housing Persistent challenges Risks System deficiencies Lack of recognition Lack of trust Lack of transparency Relationship between top and bottom Selective information
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Broken promises Business as usual Private/elite interests Forces counteracting change Sales arguments Innovative solutions Efforts for change Participation
The four categories that came out of the observations all suited in the theme “Persistent challenges” the theme that was also generated from the media articles.
Observations Categories Themes Insufficient housing Risks Persistent challenges Lack of opportunities Spatial injustice
The eight categories found in the conversations fit in the themes “Persistent challenges”, “Relationship between top and bottom”, and “Forces counteracting change”.
Conversations Categories Themes Segregation Inequalities Insufficient housing Persistent challenges System deficiencies Risks Lack of information Relationship between top and bottom Missed opportunities Forces counteracting change Economic barriers
The results were divided into two parts: the different challenges and the future Visions put forth by the Western Cape Government, and the Realities as portrayed by the media and the conversations and observations done in the area, generating an on-the-ground perspective.
3.5 Ethical considerations Like qualitative research in general, ethnography often have to deal with ethics (O’Reilly, 2005: 59). Some might regard the methods used in ethnography to be unethical in general, taking part in people’s lives, observing and making conversations and later on analysing and writing about this, and sometimes in a critical way. O’Reilly (2005: 60) believes it to be best to do what one can to protect the rights of the different participants in the study, but at the same time accept that it is not an easy task to balance it, and people do this in their own way.
Kumaran (2014: 1) thinks that listening should be at the centre of participatory research and he wants to change the perception of listening as a weak act to have it instead perceived as a
16 radical act. Listening makes us humble and this can then be used for radical action. It should no longer be about development researchers getting their beliefs validated by the participants but instead having them challenged. When listened to, people become what Kumaran calls “storying individuals” (Kumaran, 2014: 3), and the author thinks that hearing is an act of charity, while listening can work as an equalizer and empower those listened to (Kumaran, 2014: 5).
When using a covert approach, which means not explaining to participants what you are doing, it is easier to cross ethical boundaries compared to an overt approach, were you inform participants of you and your study (O’Reilly, 2005: 60-61). Despite criticism against covert research it can be very difficult to distinguish it from overt. It is not always easy to be completely open with what you are doing. For example you may not be able to explain everything because you yourself are not sure where the research is heading. O’Reilly (2005: 61) thinks that it is hard to on the one hand be as open as possible, and on the other hand trying to melt in and avoid people taking too much notice of you.
As described by Davies (2008),
“Covert research involves investigation in which the researchers deliberately conceal their identity as researchers, along with their intention of conducting research, and present themselves in another guise in order to collect data for this secret an unacknowledged research project” (Davies, 2008: 61-62). The people participating in the study should get to know what you are doing and also why, as well as what will be done with the collected data (O’Reilly, 2005: 62). However, complete openness can make people adjust themselves. Also, people may not fully understand what you really mean, despite your explanations. As O’Reilly puts it “Ultimately, there are no easy answers, but ethics is about trying to ensure that you cause as little pain or harm as possible…” (O’Reilly, 2005: 63). As for this study, it was sometimes difficult to be completely open with what the study was about, especially in the beginning, because it evolved over time. Since the observations was not participatory but aimed towards obtaining a greater understanding of the overall problems in the communities, it was impossible to tell everyone you saw on the streets what you were doing. When making conversations with people they were told that I was a Swedish student in environmental science, doing my bachelor thesis in Cape Town, so the identity and general purpose of me being there was not disguised. Regarding the privacy of participants, I did not intend to include any names but I have chosen to act on the wishes of those participating, which means that one woman, Nadia, is mentioned by name.
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4. Results
4.1 Persistent apartheid geography I will begin here with a description of the persistent apartheid legacy. Because the Western Cape Provincial Spatial Development Framework (2014) do not explain it as fully as I deem necessary to understand the issues, Marais (2011) work is also used.
When the National Party won the election in 1948 it was really the start of race being the key factor that determined what privileges and opportunities citizens could expect to get in the country (Marais, 2011: 15). The black population got even fewer opportunities to enhance their lives and was restricted through legislation, administration and coercion. Africans were worst of and were now only allowed to live on 13 percent of the country’s land, within different ‘nations’ in so called ‘homelands’. This oppression of the Africans were however not new, instead it was a continuation and intensification of the path that had been taken for several decades. Now pass-laws were used even more to control the movement of African labour in to the cities, who’s only purpose for the apartheid state seemed to be to serve the industries and agriculture (Marais, 2011: 17).
Apartheid gave the enfranchised better access to assets such as well-located land with resources compared to those disenfranchised (Western Cape Government [WCG], 2014: 59). The provincial government admits that this is a pattern that still goes on. Service delivery as well as housing delivery has improved since 1994, but the problem is that this has happened on the periphery (WCG, 2014: 25). Locating the subsidized housing projects on peripheral land means that low income households have to use a lot of their money on transport. It also demands more of the economy, and costs for services increases because of the low density of settlements (WCG, 2014: 59). Similar to under apartheid, this has meant that opportunities in the urban space-economy have been hard to obtain for those living in these areas. This generates what is called “poverty traps”.
The apartheid era did not only generate inequalities when it came to work and living patterns, but it was also an inefficient system in the way big parcels of land was used and the amount of energy that was consumed (WCG, 2014: 24). This is unfortunately a legacy that is present even to this day. The National Planning Commission (2012) explains that “Despite reforms to the planning system, colonial and apartheid legacies still structure space across different scales” (National Planning Commission [NPC], 2012: 260). According to the NPC (2012: 260), converting the spatial legacies of colonialism and apartheid can take decades. It does point out that it is going in the right direction, but more action is needed. So, despite efforts to transform the apartheid geography since the end of apartheid, inequality, inefficiency and segregation still haunts South Africa communities (WCG, 2014: 25).
4.1.1 Policy framework (PSDF) and challenges The Western Cape Provincial Spatial Development Framework (2014), in short the PSDF, is a document that highlights the challenges the Province is facing in reversing its spatial legacy that was generated under apartheid, but also what can be done to change this. It draws on several other documents, with the National Development Plan (NDP) (NPC, 2012),
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OneCape2040 (Western Cape Government [WCG], 2012) and State of Environment Outlook Report for the Western Cape Province (Western Cape Government [WCG], 2013) being relevant for this study. The apartheid legacy was brought up above, and this part will account for challenges expressed in the PSDF. The third part deals with the unsustainable urban growth patterns in the Province. In the PSDF (2014) there are several transitions that are part of the vision for transformation, and two of them, Green Cape and Living Cape, make up the two subsequent chapters. This is followed by Smart growth, which is a strategy to handle spatial growth in the Province. Later on come Realities and what story people, the media and observations tell.
In the NDP it is stated that “the apartheid spatial divide continues to dominate the landscape”, (NPC, 2012: 24) and “the legacy of apartheid continues to determine the life opportunities for the vast majority” (NPC, 2012: 24). The National Planning Commission (2012: 46-47) admits that policies applied since 1994 have in some cases placed low-income housing on the urban periphery which has consolidated the spatial divides. The Western Cape Government (2014: 75) explains that it is difficult to reverse the spatial legacy which is still a reality in the Province, but it is up for the challenge.
There seem to be many reasons to why not more is happening to change the spatial patterns. According to the provincial government, spatial transformation has not been seen as a priority before the NDP (WCG, 2014: 29). The action needed to make a reality of the admirable aims towards transformation has yet to happen. Spatial transformation is described as something that takes time because of the built environment´s lifespan and how the ownership of land and how it is used takes its time to change. The WCG (2014: 29) is transparent about how it is easier to continue as before, since spatial transformation is considered to be complex and can feel risky. However, the WCG is not clear about what these risks may be but later on explains that some of these risks are related to brownfields development (WCG 2014: 32). Apparently this kind of land is difficult to get a hold on and is expensive to buy. The Western Cape Government (2014: 32) also sees ‘not in my backyard’ (NIMBY) opposition to obtaining ‘brownfields’.
It is explained that the politicians have an agenda and a timeline that is different from those of the private sector and the spatial planners (WCG, 2014: 29). The provincial government admits that spatial policies are in many cases not acted upon in political decision-making, instead the decisions tend to go in the opposite direction.
Speeding up spatial transformation is according to the Western Cape Government (2014: 29) not currently possible due to lack of capacity from the government. The NPC (2012: 274-275) does also not regard the spatial governance being strong enough. Weak governance means that instead of the government deciding over spatial growth as it should, this often falls into the hands of the private sector.
A transformation of human settlements so particularly the poor will get more urban opportunities while the environment does not get harmed by settlements development is regarded as the fundamental spatial challenge (WCG, 2014: 70). Another challenge regards
19 the gap in the property market and rental housing (WCG, 2014: 89). There needs to be more rental options.
Policies to handle the excluding and unequal spatial legacy from the apartheid era have not succeeded (WCG, 2014: 88-89). The action towards reducing backlogs has not worked out well and there are worries about the housing backlog in the whole Province. One quarter of the Province’s population live in informal housing, as backyarders, or in overcrowded conditions. Despite changes in the State-assisted housing delivery programme and towards incremental housing delivery, the Western Cape Government (2014: 26) seems almost overwhelmed by the challenges, calling them formidable. The challenges are to transform the townships from the apartheid era to become human settlements that are integrated and sustainable, for urban informality to be seen and acted upon, and the patterns of growth in the urban areas to be handled.
4.1.2 Unsustainable urban growth The National Planning Commission (2012: 47) makes it clear that they do not want housing development to take place in marginal places. According to the WCG (2014: 25) it is cheaper to buy land in these places but it is considered expensive in the long run. The way in which quick profits sometimes guide development so it happens on peripheral land led by developers is considered a problem (WCG, 2014: 82). It is also so because it is the society and the state and not the developers who have to pay for poorly planned developments (WCG, 2014: 59).
According to the WCG (2014: 26) the urban growth in the Western Cape is expensive and unsustainable, seen from how it negatively affects municipal finances. Spatial transformation is made a priority because the spatial divides are very costly from several perspectives; socially, environmentally and economically (NPC, 2014: 47). The costs come from the fact that developments have taken place on peripheral land and generate urban sprawl (WCG, 2014: 25). For households, in particular poorer ones, this means that they have fewer opportunities and have to use a considerable amount of money on transport. Peripheral development places people in so called poverty traps, and state-assisted housing have in fact had a worsening excluding impact because of this (WCG, 2014: 88-89). However, according to the provincial government the delivery of subsidised housing cannot currently take place on well located land due to the financial structures of subsidy housing.
The exclusionary land markets also hinder socioeconomic groups from being spatially integrated and it is difficult for these people to access better placed housing that fits their wallet (WCG, 2014: 88). This is further shown in the fact that more than 80% of the households in the province do not have the money needed for the formal land market (WCG, 2014: 25-26). This results in many people having to turn to the informal land market with the options of living in backyards and informal dwellings, while some who are living in formal housing have to endure overcrowding. Rental housing options are too few and are therefore not an option for many people currently living under these circumstances. The government have on the other hand land and buildings which are well-located, and that could be used for housing (WCG, 2014: 88).
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The still existing natural habitats in the lowlands are described as being highly endangered because of land transformation caused by agriculture and human settlements (WCG, 2014: 39). Referring to the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Chapter in the State of Environment Outlook Report for the Western Cape Province (WCG, 2013), loss of biodiversity and a worsening health status of the ecosystems in the Province is mainly an effect of land transformation and lowlands are especially threatened by it (WCG, 2013: 3-4).
Informal settlements also contribute to unsustainable urban growth patterns. From an ecological point of view, these settlements can often be placed on sensitive ecological areas (WCG, 2014: 39). This also has an effect on the health of people living there. At the same time, people in the Province also have unequal access to environmental assets.
4.1.3 Green Cape – ecological transition OneCape2040: from vision to action (2012) is a document for economic development in Western Cape (WCG, 2012: 1-2). The PSDF (2014) is founded on the vision put forth in OneCape2040 of “a highly-skilled, innovation driven, resource efficient, connected, high opportunity and collaborative society” (WCG, 2014: 29; WCG, 2012: 6). Part of this vision is an ecological transition (Green Cape), which means moving away from an “unsustainable carbon-intensive resource use” (WCG, 2012: 7) to a sustainable one (WCG, 2012: 7). The foundational goal is to make sure that everyone in the province has access to water, energy and waste services, with a sustainable delivery where resources are used efficiently. It also has an aspirational goal where “The Western Cape is a recognised leader and innovator in the green economy” (WCG, 2012: 7). The aspirational goals for the different kinds of transitions described in the document are used to make sure the province will be a competitive region on a global scale. The Western Cape Government (2014) have in the PSDF made an interpretation of Green Cape which is that “All households can access basic services that are delivered resource efficiently, residents use land and finite resources prudently, and safeguard their ecosystems.”(WCG, 2014: 29). The focus here will be on ecological transition in relation to land in a way that is relevant to the research topic which means that all aspects of the PSDFs Green Cape are not included.
The WCG (2014: 32) describes how the efficient use of natural resources is coherent with spatial transformation. It states that there should no longer be a connection between economic growth and resource depletion. Because the WCG (2014: 25) wants economic growth and see it as a priority something must be done to balance economic growth and the safeguarding of resources. Hence transitioning to a so called Green Economy is seen as a relevant approach going forward (WCG, 2014: 32). To break the connection between economic growth and resource depletion the use of resources needs to be reduced and substituted and there might also be a need for options to replace scarce resources, without harming the environment.
The WCG (2014: 33) is aware of the importance of lowering the consumption of resources. In the PSDF it is explained that natural resources like land and water, but also agriculture, needs to be used carefully and that these support the economy (WCG, 2014: 33). There needs to be as little consumption as possible of scarce resources (WCG, 2014: 39). Water and land are
21 once again mentioned, but also fuel. Different kinds of rural land and pristine land, which are non-renewable, are seen as the most important forms of land not to overconsume.
The provincial government explains that nature in the form of biodiversity networks and ecosystem services needs to be protected for the future to be a sustainable one (WCG, 2014: 33). Agriculture and urban growth should not encroach into key Critical Biodiversity Areas or ecological support areas (WCG, 2014: 41). The threat exists especially in the lowlands, where agriculture and settlements compete for space. At the same time areas of agriculture is described as also in need of protection from settlements (WCG, 2014: 78). This also regards landscapes considered scenic. In these cases as well as regarding biodiversity priority areas, holding back settlements are seen as particularly important in between settlements and on the edges of the coast and along the river corridors.
A strategy that the PSDF puts forth to deal with the pressures that urban growth is putting on Critical Biodiversity Areas is to create urban edges that will figure in the municipalities SDFs so to keep away from these areas (WCG, 2014: 41). A way to make the networks of biodiversity more resilient is to ensure that there is spatial continuity and connectivity. To make as little damage as possible to the environment, the WCG (2014: 83) thinks that settlements and its footprints should be more compact.
4.1.4 Living Cape – settlement transition Another transition that the PSDF (2014) borrows from OneCape2040 (2012) is regarding settlements (Living Cape) meaning a transition to “healthy, accessible, liveable multi- opportunity communities” (WCG, 2012: 7). The foundational goal is that neighbourhoods and towns in the province will offer everyone a good life, they are easy to access, provides decent public services and contains a range of opportunities (WCG, 2012: 7). The version in the PSDF (2014) is quite similar; “Living and working environments are healthy, safe, enabling and accessible, and all have access to the region’s unique lifestyle offering.” (WCG, 2014: 29). OneCape2040’s (2012) aspirational goal is that “The Western Cape is ranked as one of the greatest places to live in the world” (WCG, 2012: 7).
Inclusion, opportunities and justice were reoccurring concepts in the PSDF (2014). These are all related to social development and can be seen as part of the vision Living Cape. They also relate to some extent to Connecting Cape, which is about a cultural transition where “Urban and rural communities are inclusive, integrated, connected and collaborate” (WCG, 2014: 29). However, Connecting Cape does not only focus on connecting inside the province but also on a global scale (WCG, 2012: 7). It is about a transition to “high level of local connectivity and global market fluency” (WCG, 2012: 7). This section is therefore mainly about settlement transition (Living Cape) but with parts relating to the cultural transition (Connecting Cape).
According to the provincial government, when changing the spatial legacy of the province by restructuring the landscapes it is necessary to do this in a way that generate opportunities for everyone, but in particular for those previously disadvantaged (WCG, 2014: 25). The focus should be on the poor (WCG, 2014: 22, 70, 80). The public realm should be the focal point instead of private enclaves if settlements are to be more inclusionary (WCG, 2014: 22). Interaction by civil society should be supported as well as making sure that access in the
22 public environment is on equal terms. Investment in places which are densely populated and with people who are socioeconomically excluded is regarded as a way to deal with this spatial legacy that apartheid left (WCG, 2014: 83).
Related to justice and opportunities is land restitution and redistribution which the provincial government still consider important to address (WCG, 2014: 24). By giving disadvantaged communities better opportunities in accessing land, the inequalities can be redressed (WCG, 2014: 22).
The poor needs to be better able to access the urban land markets, more options for accommodation needs to be made available, and the conditions people are living in should be enhanced (WCG, 2014: 33). A form of development that according to the WCG (2014: 90) should be encouraged is one that is made for people of different income groups, that is used for different purposes (mixed-use) and that is inclusive. This can be done by letting the housing projects offer different economic opportunities. Different housing opportunities when it comes to tenure, size, and density as well as the height and quality of the house should be a way for people to move up if their economy changes (WCG, 2014: 90). Households with a low income of between R1 500 to R7 500 a month should first of all get rental options.
Compaction of cities can make them more inclusive, with different types of housing and social facilities, and different kinds of people (WCG, 2014: 75). Compaction also means that basic services can be more efficiently delivered, to less cost.
The document brings up the need for giving support to the informal market so the poor can have that option (WCG, 2014: 84). There should also be development inside informal settlements. The NPC (2012: 44) stresses the important part infrastructure plays in development. To upgrade informal settlements on land with a suitable location is described as being a priority in this case (NPC, 2012: 46). In the PSDF it is mentioned that there can be more opportunities in the space-economy if dysfunctional townships built environment gets upgraded (WCG, 2014: 70). In this way peoples living environments can generate more opportunities.
According to the WCG (2014: 90), the social value of land should take precedence over other possible interests. It also describes how the opportunity to use public land for public housing should not be missed. Apart from using State land, appropriate private land could also be an option that should be considered, another option being going into joint ventures (WCG, 2014: 103).
The provincial government aims for public property rights to be considered more in relation to private property rights (WCG, 2014: 32). The public will have more influence over spatial growth instead of developers having a dominating role. The WCG (2014: 94) considers communities as well as the private sector to have better knowledge over where development is going and thinks that spatial development should be driven by these actors, with development being based on partnerships.
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The provincial government thinks that sustainability and an integrated development planning should constitute the foundation of housing delivery (WCG, 2014: 90). There is an awareness of the faults of the current system and it is suggested to prioritise improvement of houses and incremental development instead of focusing on the delivery of complete houses (WCG, 2014: 32, 90). Incremental housing and a phased provision of services is seen as a way to speed up housing delivery (WCG, 2014: 90). This should be done together with other government departments but also involving communities and the private sector (WCG, 2014: 70), making them also take part in funding (WCG, 2014: 32). The WCG (2014: 32) thinks that beneficiaries should take part in delivery, which is a change from the current form of delivery which has been top-down. When it comes to gap housing, the WCG (2014: 90) is also talking about making the private sector take part in this market because it can generate more options for housing delivery.
4.1.5 Smart growth According to the WCG (2014: 100) spatial growth needs to be handled in a proactive way. The solutions described in the PSDF (2014) seem to point in the direction of so called “smart growth”. Smart growth is a concept that is mentioned quite briefly and near the end of the PSDF. It should however be important for the Western Cape Government considering how it describes “smart growth” as a way to manage spatial growth (WCG, 2014: 100). In many ways, even if the document does not elaborate very much further on the concept of “smart growth” and does not explicitly state it to be the Provinces development goal, much of what is described as a way forward by the WCG is what the concept of “smart growth” is about. What the WCG does say about it is that “the notion of “smart growth” is accepted globally as an essential dimension of securing economic, social and environmental benefits, and building resilience” (WCG, 2014: 100). It means using land and infrastructure efficiently by limiting sprawl and to develop more in existing settlements, with infill and intensification (WCG, 2014: 78).
The WCG (2014: 75) explains that the aim is for spatial growth to have more of an inward instead of an outward focus. It is talking about increasing densities as opposed to continued sprawl (WCG, 2014: 32-34). The suburban way of settlement should give way to a more urban and there should be efforts to hinder the fragmentation of townships. Both settlements and dwelling units should be denser in future housing projects (WCG, 2014: 90).
With the PSDF (2014) the provincial government is clear about making a change for human settlements to become more compact and connected, explaining that the way settlements look now have proven to be unsustainable while also increasing inequalities (WCG, 2014: 80). To make this a reality the WCG (2014: 63) proposes giving priority to the development of bulk infrastructure for existing settlements so they can become more compact and connected, instead of developing it for outward expansion. Already existing settlements should receive more resources and finance than new and badly located developments (WCG, 2014: 91).
In line with these aims for density and connection, the WCG (2014: 32, 75) thinks that ‘brownfields’ development should be prioritised over ‘greenfields’ development. ‘Brownfields’ development should give opportunities for gap and subsidy housing on land
24 that is well-located (WCG, 2014: 103). However, according to the document it has not been easy to safeguard this type of land. This means that the development on peripheral land continues and holds back opportunities for those of lower income.
To advance liveability of settlements, functional integration and mixed use will be important according to the provincial government (WCG, 2014: 84). It sees increased densities and infill development as ways to oppose the spatial patterns set up by apartheid, and also the decentralization. The WCG (2014: 74) explains that an important part of creating more sustainable settlements is for them to have in them a sense of place and environments of good quality. Part of this is the economic opportunities that can be obtained from tourism, and bringing more skills into the service and knowledge economy. It is also about giving everyone despite income a healthy life with a feeling of dignity.
4.2 Realities: Spatial injustice and segregation Staying in the mainly white middle-class community of Kommetjie while going into the coloured township of Ocean View and the black (African) township of Masiphumelele is like going in and out of different worlds, where the living standard and opportunities are strikingly unequal when comparing them. “The differences are extreme” is a very telling comment made by a Kommetjie resident when talking about these three communities. It is not only the circumstances but also the feeling of the places that differs, even between the two townships. While in Masiphumelele many live in shacks, there is an energy that pulses through the community and an enterprise that leaves you feeling a bit optimistic despite the conditions in the township. In Ocean View you meet people who are very warm and friendly but there is an atmosphere there that means that you can more easily sense the hardships people are living under. People there talked about being stuck. Opportunities to get somewhere in life are lacking. Jobs are few and a young woman expressed that the same people are hired for the jobs. A mother saw the opportunities for her teenage daughter as restricted. A single mom felt a need to push her son to study so he does not end up on the wrong path. The lack of opportunities also mean that it is difficult for someone who would like to move out of the township to do so, because as a Kommetjie resident said, one would have to earn very well to be able to move elsewhere.
While Ocean View clearly has more space than Masiphumelele, the truth is that compared to the rest of the Valley, both Masiphumelele and Ocean View has a very high concentration of people on a small amount of space (Kretzmann, 2016; Sendin, 2018; Villette, 2018). The unjust spatial pattern is made visible not just in the fact that communities are still highly segregated based on ethnicity (Sendin, 2018; Villette, 2018), with unequal access to space (Kretzmann; Sendin, 2018; Villette, 2018) and opportunities between the communities (Villette, 2018), but also because unsustainable low-density developments are still being built for the wealthy (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017). While communities like Ocean View and Masiphumelele experience overcrowding, unused land or so called ‘greenfields’ are still being used for new developments that cater to the wealthy on the neighbouring land of both these communities. Right next to Ocean View a new vineyard estate is being prepared to be built. It
25 is also close to Masiphumelele who have other excluding estates nearby, such as the Chapman’s Bay and Lake Michelle Estates, developments that are exacerbating the unjust spatial pattern (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017). In addition to this, the fencing in of the Chapman’s Bay Estate and Lake Michelle have also meant that people living outside of them can no longer access environments that they used to enjoy, like the wetland area and the mountains that has been made exclusive to the estates residents (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017).
4.2.1 Housing need and broken promises There is a pressing need for land and housing in the Valley, especially among the poorer communities. Nadia, an Ocean View resident, confirms this huge need for housing in her community. As media articles reveal, people in Ocean View have gone out to protest because they are tired of all the promises that have been made around housing and land that have yet to be realised (Mtyala, Ndenza, Monare, 2005; Dordley, 2018; Pather, 2018) and residents of Masiphumelele are fed up by not being given the opportunity to build their shacks on land that stands vacant (Ntongana, 2017a; Ntongana, 2017b; Ntongana, 2018). These are communities that are severely overcrowded. The overcrowding in Masiphumelele is very visible, with small shacks standing so close to each other that in some parts of the community there is just enough room for you to walk between people’s homes. The lack of land to settle on in the community pushes people to build their shacks in the adjacent wetland area, despite the risk of flooding. In Ocean View on the other hand, the overcrowded conditions is not so much seen by just walking through the neighbourhoods. On the contrary, there seem to be quite a lot of space, at least when compared to Masiphumelele. You need to go into the houses and apartments and talk to people in the community to realise that Ocean View is overcrowded. From what people were saying when making conversations in the community, it is clear that there are often considerably more people living inside the houses and apartments than these are made for. Both an Ocean View resident and a Kommetjie resident with connections to Ocean View said that there can be more than one family or several generations living in one house.
There is also concerns and dissatisfaction about the quality of the houses that do get delivered and/or if the land that it is built on is suitable (Mccain, 2016; Mtyala et.al, 2005). It is also about the City not keeping to its promises on the size of the plots and houses (Mccain, 2016). This dissatisfaction was also voiced by some of the Ocean View residents when making small conversations and observations in the area. It is clear that a house is not always enough; the spaces need to be big enough for all of those who are going to live there, which, as has already been mentioned, can be quite many. The small living spaces were not only expressed by people living in Ocean View, but were also brought up by a Kommetjie resident who knows the area.
Considering the pressing need for housing it is not difficult to understand the complaints about the slow progress of housing delivery and the issues with the completion of some projects. In media articles voices from people in Masiphumelele reveal that new projects are apparently on the table while others are still to be done (Ntongana, 2017a; Ntongana, 2018). Some have to wait many years to receive a house, with examples of someone living in a shack in Masiphumelele who had waited nearly 20 years for a house (Ntongana, 2017a), and
26 another one being a backyarder since 1998 (Ntongana, 2018). In Ocean View one beneficiary of the houses that was part of a World Design Capital programme had stayed in the informal settlement of Mountain View since 1986, while another one had waited since 1999 for a home (First Ocean View homes handed over, 2014). Ocean View resident Nadia spoke about the differences in waiting time, how some people have to wait 25 years to get a house while others get one within 2-3 years.
Another problem is that the housing delivery system clearly has its faults. Nadia described how she had to leave her job to get a RDP house because she was earning more than the maximum R3500 to get a house. She talked about trying to beat the system and how people have to portray themselves as poor. Some defaults with the housing delivery system were also brought up in articles. The delivery of low-cost housing does not have the capacity to reduce the housing backlogs in the near future and is actually accentuating spatial injustice (Green, 2017).
4.2.2 Persistent Environmental and Social Risks The overcrowded and unhealthy conditions put people at risk. In Masiphumelele this is particularly evident were so many people are packed together and were as many as 100 people may have to share a toilet (Ntongana, 2017a). In an article regarding Masiphumelele, one resident talked about the conditions in the wetland area as living in a pigsty, and people of the area have complained about these living conditions for many years (Ntongana, 2017a). This becomes apparent when one walks through the area. A stream is running through the community, polluted and filled with all sorts of trash as well as human faeces. It ends up in the wetland, probably causing environmental damage. Shacks built on the wetland experience flooding. Fires have also ravaged the community (Kretzmann, 2016). In an article about the massive surge of protests around land and housing in Cape Town in 2018, it was said that people can be put at risk from flooding, fires and other risks that affects their health and safety when they invade land that is not meant for human settlement (Dordley, 2018). Invading land may also hinder emergency and basic services from being delivered and other upcoming initiatives that could make the lives of residents better.
In Ocean View people have been protesting over the unbearable conditions they are living under (Mtyala et.al, 2005). The ground in some of the areas that people are living in is not always suitable to put housing on. One Ocean View resident cited in an article explains that one development is situated on moving ground that damages the houses. There are considerable safety concerns in Ocean View as well. Kretzmann (2016) writes about Ocean View as a place where murders related to drugs and gangs occur continuously. A Kommetjie resident with connections to Ocean View said that there are enormous problems with drugs in the Stone Haven area. Also, when talking about overcrowding in Ocean View she spoke about there being lots of open space but added that “sadly there are a lot of spaces that are not safe”. She also describes these open spaces, and especially the town centre, as being awful and that the open spaces at present are not healthy spaces.
New developments also poses risks, and not only for the poorer communities. People neighbouring the Kommetjie Vineyard Estates development was exposed to kaolin dust that
27 came from preparing the ground, which can have serious effects on people’s health (Du Preez, 2019). It was people living at Imhoff´s Gift that voiced their concerns but it would probably have affected both Ocean View and Masiphumelele as well. Experts said this could cause serious lung diseases.
4.2.3 Lack of trust Selective information, lack of transparency and lack of trust are reoccurring concepts that comes up in some of the media articles and in a conversation. This is part of the relationship the local government, the developers and a trust have with the communities in the Valley.
There have been concerns regarding the development of Kommetjie Vineyards Estates that derives from the kaolin dust that plagued the neighbouring residents of the development, with voiced concern from people from Imhoff´s Gift (lying opposite the new development) and experts confirming the negative effects the dust can have on people (and animals) that get exposed to it (Du Preez, 2019). The Homeowners’ Association of Imhoff´s Gift thinks that the environmental study never gave a warning of the health effects the development could generate. The possible effect on children and the communities of Ocean View and Masiphumelele were not mentioned either according to one of those who voiced their concerns.
Regarding Chapman’s Bay Estates the environmental impact of the development is not brought into light by the developers (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017). The developers remain quiet about the possible negative impacts the development have had on the animals and plants living on the land where construction have taken place. It also fails to mention how this will be a space-consuming low-density development for a very limited amount of people (even if a feeling of space actually is part of the sales arguments).
Selective information or lack of transparency is also something that comes up regarding available vacant land, especially when it comes to Masiphumelele, where people´s need for a space to live on is so urgent that they illegally settle on land, resulting in demolished shacks and an expressed anguish by those trying to build a home (Ntongana, 2017a). When there is City-owned land available adjacent to the settlement that could be used for housing and are planned to be used for that, the City is quiet about it or at least not completely transparent about being the owner of it (Kretzmann, 2016). Kretzmann (2016) thinks that this has to do with the City possibly fearing people will invade the land if they know it could be used for housing. However people in Masiphumelele are demanding more transparency, with residents wanting a development plan for the community to be made available for all to see (Ntongana, 2017b).
Selective information and a lack of transparency naturally have effects on trust between the communities and the City. In Masiphumelele there is clearly a lack of trust between the community and the City, which is displayed in the example of how Masiphumelele residents rather want to pick their own mediator because they do not believe that the ones hired by the City will serve the community´s interests (Ntongana, 2017b). The news about that the for many years discussed land (Erf 5131) will be used as a temporary location for housing starting this year brought hope (Ndongeni, 2019). However, there is scepticism among some.
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One resident expressed suspicion towards this announcement and saw it as a political game before the elections, and did not feel confident the City would go through with it (Ndongeni, 2019). This shows that there is a real lack of trust between the people and the officials.
In Ocean View there is also a lack of transparency when it comes to a trust that was supposed to benefit the community. Ocean View resident Nadia said it was for Ocean View but that the people of Ocean View do not know about it. She says that Ocean View will not see it but that it wants to and that there is a new breed there that has had enough. She asks where the money went. This was also mentioned at a sub council meeting, where it was said that the trust had lacked in transparency and that people of Ocean View do not know what happened with the money going in to the trust and that they should be given an update.
4.2.4 A quest for more participation In Masiphumelele, residents are demanding more participation. As Ntongana (2017b) writes, Masiphumelele residents wanted to take part in selecting who will have a mediating role between the City and the community and did not accept those picked by the City of Cape Town. The mediators were supposed to contribute to a better communication between the stakeholders of the community and the City. The community was planning to replace the mediators that the City had elected with their own suggestions of people suitable for this role, which the City then could choose between. Also, as mentioned earlier, residents wanted to see a development plan for the community before negotiating with the City.
In an article regarding Masiphumelele a Public Protector Advocate was saying that instead of people taking the law into their own hands, they should approach them with their problems, and the City and Provincial government could also participate (Ntongana, 2017a). However, residents have tried to communicate on important matters without being heard, or at least there have been nothing happening to relieve the distress. An example is residents trying to engage with the City about the land that had been bought by the City several years ago but had not been taken seriously (Ntongana, 2017a; Ntongana, 2017b; Ntongana, 2018), that is, up until earlier this year when it was announced that temporary housing is planned to be built on that land (Ndongeni, 2019). Considering the time it takes before pressing issues are properly addressed, taking matters into your own hands might be the only way to make things happen.
Another form of participation took place in Ocean View. When making the stonemasonry houses that was part of a World Design Capital programme, the officials were showcasing how this is a participative community project (First Ocean View homes handed over, 2014). People were included in the construction of these homes and there is talk about the possibilities that comes when the City and the community are working together. This is not only about participation in construction but also about creating jobs.
4.2.5 New solutions and a better conscience Both the Chapman’s Bay Estates and the Kommetjie Vineyards Estates are developments that want to show off a green and/or social conscience. The Chapman’s Bay Estate developers talks about how “green” the development is (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017). Buyers get a feeling that they are doing something important when buying a property, being part of a higher good
29 when protecting nature. However, while the developers uses sales arguments about how “green” it is, it also tries to sell properties by highlighting how spacious it is. This seems contradictory because using a lot of space is not very sustainable, and high-density developments are needed in Cape Town. The estate being spacious implies that more land and what lives on and off it has been affected by construction.
The Kommetjie Vineyard Estates developers want to primarily show their social conscience. The developers are talking about social and economic upliftment in the surrounding area (Norris, 2005). Both Ocean View and Masiphumelele are said to receive both short-term and long-term financial benefits from the development. Ocean View’s middle class will have the opportunity to obtain 15ha of the land with services, and the poorer sections will get housing opportunities that suits them financially, using the profits from selling the 15ha land. Donating a big share of the land to the South African National Parks is a way to show that they also have an environmental conscience (Norris, 2005). Similar to Chapman’s Bay Estates this is a low-density development, which is also mentioned, but as if it is something positive.
The Stone Haven development brought housing to people who were in need of a decent home (First Ocean View homes handed over, 2014). It is nice-looking houses. It comes across as a very good initiative, a new way of thinking about delivering housing, not only being a simple house but putting thought into how they would look aesthetically, while also giving people in the community the opportunity to participate in making them. However there are questions about how successful this project really was. A Kommetjie resident familiar with the area thinks that it is nice to develop peoples skills but that these houses were not very well made and the spaces are small. She thinks that it has not been working very well, that quite a vulnerable group was moved and that it could have been done better. She also said that they did not give people a space that helps develop community.
4.2.6 Missed opportunities and business as-usual There have been opportunities for the City to address the spatial injustices and need for more land and housing, without the City acting on it. These are the missed opportunities to desegregate and make the Valley more spatially just. Media articles reveal that there seem to be a tendency to revert to business as usual, that the City in some cases is not that mindful of new strategies to desegregate and bring spatial justice. To cite Sendin; “In former “Whites only” areas it is truly business as usual when it comes to public land” (Sendin, 2018). In the case of Fish Hoek (and other parts of the city), public land is used for sports activities for a small amount of money when instead houses could be built on it to serve a greater public need (Sendin, 2018; Villette, 2018).
As been mentioned above, some articles explains how there is land that was bought by the City for accommodating people in Masiphumelele who are in need of a home (Ntongana, 2017a; Ntongana 2017b; Ntongana, 2018). Many years later still nothing had been done with that land even though an article from April this year indicates that there will be temporary housing built on it (Ndongeni, 2019). This has been a missed opportunity that now may be addressed.
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Another example of a missed opportunity comes from a Kommetjie resident who during our conversation spoke about how there had been a plan for development between Ocean View and the middle-class community of Capri in the 1980s. This piece of land could according to this informant have been an opportunity for people who were socioeconomically between Ocean View and Capri. According to the informant there are different socioeconomic groups in Ocean View and they want to upgrade. She said that she believed that this (plan/development) would have made integration more possible and that it could have brought opportunities not only regarding housing but also workshops. Apart from residents of Ocean View this proposed development could have also generated possibilities for people of Masiphumelele. Unfortunately the plan got rejected and the City did not take the chance to buy that land. The informant referred to this as a “real missed opportunity”.
While it is overcrowded and difficult to get housing inside of Ocean View and Masiphumelele and land adjacent to them, there seem to be very difficult for residents of these communities to get housing elsewhere in the Valley. One Kommetjie resident said that it is difficult for someone from Ocean View to move if not earning very well. She also said that the prices in Kommetjie and Fish Hoek have gone up, but also that the plots inside of Masiphumelele are very expensive and probably in Ocean View likewise. The housing developments that are planned does nothing to desegregate the Valley, and continues to place black (African) and coloured citizens in peripheral poverty traps (Sendin, 2018). The Kommetjie resident expresses the segregation between communities in the Valley when saying “It is sad in this area, where do we meet?” She also mentioned how quite often people from Ocean View who go to the beach (in Kommetjie) feel unwelcomed. She talks about Kommetjie as a “self- satisfied community”.
The missed opportunities to provide housing to poorer communities have meant more opportunities for the wealthier. Instead of land and housing for Ocean View and Masiphumelele, new gated communities have been and are being built on the plots available. This has not been uncontroversial though. In the case of Chapman’s Bay Estates there was opposition to the development, not only from civil society and environmental groups, but also from the City of Cape Town (DA) (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017). The province’s planning advisory board thought the development should not have been so expansive. Apparently something happened that changed the city’s opinion.
It is apparent that the developments taking place in Cape Town and in the Valley are mainly catering to private interests and housing for the wealthy, instead of focusing on giving poor people much needed housing. The interests of a few seem to take precedence over the public interest, as in the case of leasing land for sports clubs instead of using it for housing (Sendin, 2018). Investments made by the private sector mainly go to areas in close proximity to economic centres, and mostly stays away from the poorer areas (Moore, 2017). Estates for the wealthy, such as Chapmans’ Bay Estates, are profitable (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017). As expressed by Baigrie & Ernstson (2017), the wealthy, or the elite, are taking over urban spaces.
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5. Discussion
5.1 Methods discussion The methods used in this thesis have been several. Ethnography has been the methodology that this study has been influenced by as the data collection was partly fieldwork, with direct observation and conversations. The choosing of method was therefore quite natural. Writing a thesis about a problem that occurs in another country necessitates you going there and experiencing people’s lived reality by doing fieldwork, even if you complement this, as in this case, with doing content analysis of media articles and document(s). One could have used a qualitative method containing only interviews and documents, but it would have limited the researchers understanding of the area. The same goes for using quantitative methods. This thesis would not have turned out the way it did without me experiencing the area and its different communities, seeing and feeling how people live so close but yet so separated from each other’s realities.
The data collection used for this study has its limitations. For example, the amount of deep conversations was few in number, and more of them could have generated further insights. However, this was not crucial to the results, and the plan from the beginning was to use several methods that complement each other, meaning that the results did not rely too much on what was obtained from one form of data collection. Analysing media articles worked as a way to complement the observations and conversations and make the results more generalizable, at least to other areas of Cape Town where the spatial patterns are similar. According to O’Reilly (2005: 225), to in some way be able to transfer the results to other groups or settings can be desirable even in qualitative research.
The research process was messy and often times confusing. Things did not work out as planned and the initial topic did not seem to resonate enough with the community´s (Ocean View) interests and issues. With a plan B and another topic it was still difficult to know what to focus on, how to narrow it down, and therefore, what questions to ask. It was not until the end of the fieldwork that things became clearer. However, as Clark et.al (2007: 111-112) argues, handling the messiness can be a very generative part of the research process. I feel that handling the messiness of this study has meant that I have probably learnt a lot more than if everything would have gone exactly as planned.
Living knowledge and co-creation, meaning researchers having a reciprocal relationship with communities and organisations so that all can learn from each other (Living Knowledge, n.d.) is a method or approach that suited the study well. This is about acknowledging that not only are researchers important for society, but the communities, the ordinary people, are as important to enhance research and the society in which they live in (Living Knowledge, n.d.; Facer & Enright, 2016: 10-11). This could be said to be especially important when doing research in another country where you are not familiar with the context. For this study people in the communities were very helpful and sometimes eager to contribute to my understanding of the lived realities in these communities, and knowledge was received that could not have been obtained from other sources than from people living in the area.
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As mentioned in the methods section, all data was analysed through a qualitative content analysis. Like all methods, this has both its advantages and disadvantages. To be critical, doing a qualitative content analysis means that the interpreting can be very subjective and coloured by the researcher’s previous knowledge (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 196-197) so it can be difficult to know if the results of the analysis would have turned out the same way if someone else conducted it. My lack of experience as a researcher can also have a negative effect on the results. However, qualitative content analysis can be adjusted to suit different levels of experience (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 199), making it a suitable choice for this study. On a positive note, the qualitative content analysis goes well with the collected data because it stresses the importance of context, and that the truth is subjective (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 188). It is also suitable because it is a type of analysis that goes well with many sorts of data (Lundman & Graneheim, 2012: 187, 199), which in this study were several, but all qualitative in nature.
Me being white may also have had an influence on the research. When walking around in the townships you are very self-aware about the colour of your skin and that people may have attributes and prejudices attached to whiteness, and that this may have people act a certain way around you. This made me feel a bit uncomfortable in my role, especially because it was a new experience for me being white in a country where white people systematically have oppressed people of another color, a feeling also experienced by Besteman (2008: 99). Being a foreigner could however have been an advantage compared to being a white South African. It was also evident that being white and from a foreign wealthy country brought expectations to it, that maybe I could solve some of the issues. Despite all this my experience was that people were open and friendly and they did not openly condemn me. I do not feel that people adjusted themselves in a way that could influence on the results, and me being white should not have had a significant effect on the results.
5.2 Discussion of results The research questions were as follows:
How is the Western Cape Government planning to transform the province’s unsustainable spatial pattern?
How does spatial injustice play out in ‘the Valley’?
How are people in the Valley experiencing the current spatial pattern?
The Western Cape Government (2014: 26, 80) expresses an awareness of the unsustainable path that the Province is on. It reports on challenges and obstacles but also seem determined that spatial transformation is necessary (WCG, 2014: 32). In the Western Cape Provincial Spatial Development Framework (2014) the provincial government is clear about the need to enhance the lives of the poor and those who have in some ways been disadvantaged. Townships should be upgraded and more housing options and other opportunities that target the poor are important. However, observations, conversations and media articles show that little have changed in the Valley (and Cape Town) since 2014. The unjust spatial patterns and the continued divisions between the poor and the wealthy are still very real.
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The reasons for the unjust spatial patterns inherited from apartheid to be so continuous can be explained by geographical processes using spatial justice theory, and by politics/ideology, with the implications of being a neoliberal city. Starting with spatial justice theory and using the work of Soja (2010), Cape Town with its persistent segregated suburbs and townships serve as a great example of how injustices can not only be explained by historical and social processes, but also by spatial or geographical processes (Soja, 2010: 2-3). In this case, apartheid (and before that colonialism) serves as the historical and social process that made Cape Town and the rest of South Africa segregated on an unjust basis in the first place. Today however, with apartheid abolished the spatial pattern of segregation remains. The reason for people living in townships and informal settlements to experience injustices still to this day is not only because of history and social processes but also because of geography. The entrenched geographies work as a constraining component on people’s opportunities and daily lives. People are today free to move and live wherever they like but few have the means to move up and move out of their townships (if they want to). This is clearly also the case in the Valley on the Cape Peninsula.
What make the geographies in the Valley so unjust are the great inequalities in housing standard, opportunities and amount of living space between the communities. The Valley also has its suburbs and middle-class communities and gated communities who are not in the same way restricted (except maybe for safety reasons). Instead, they can thrive in their environments. Many live on spacious plots surrounded by trees and greenspaces. There are even communities that have exclusive access to some environments (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017). The Valley is a beautiful place to live in for those who have. People living in these suburbs are mainly white, and although they are a minority group in the Valley (Bray et. al, 2010: 24) they occupy considerably more space than the coloured and black (African) townships in the area (Kretzmann, 2016; Sendin, 2018; Villette, 2018). Thus, one could argue that the circumstances people are living under in the townships should not only be considered a social justice issue, but also one concerning spatial (in)justice. Soja’s (2009: 18) statement that geographical processes should get equal importance to social and historical processes seems to apply well to the situation in the Valley, because it is clear that spatial processes here have an impact on the social conditions in the different communities. This partly explains why people in the Valley still have different opportunities in life depending on where they live, decades after apartheid was abolished. However, this does not fully explain why these geographies are not changed. One can understand that changing the spatial patterns set up under the apartheid era is not done in an instant. It is challenging. From a capacity point-of- view, the provincial government admits to lacking the capacity for speeding up the spatial transformation (WCG, 2014: 29). It also appears as though the local government is in fact weak in its ability to redistribute to the poor, just as McDonald (2008: 100, 135) describes it to be. The local government have made promises that they apparently are not able to fulfil, or at least not yet. This has resulted in a lack of trust between the city and the communities, with the lack of transparency and selective information most likely adding to this.
While capacity may be part of the problem, it seems to be more to it than that. As Besteman describes, addressing poverty through redistribution in the country has been difficult since it
34 has not been compatible with neoliberal capitalism which became a global phenomenon during South Africa’s transition to democracy (Besteman, 2008: 11), with external pressures pushing the country on to a more neoliberal path (Marais, 2011: 100-101). In the Valley, it is evident that redistribution is not happening to the extent that is needed. McDonald (2008: 100) argues that while the local government in Cape Town is weak in some regards, it can also be considered strong in how it is able to take a neoliberal approach to governance while also being a great contributor in making the city competitive. Neoliberal cities have according to McDonald a clear tendency to invest more in areas that cater to business and the wealthy than giving people living in townships decent housing and a better living environment (McDonald, 2008: 153). This means that the local government may not have the capacity for poverty alleviation, but this is because it was restructured in favour of neoliberalism and not for redistribution (McDonald, 2008: 100). This may also be the reason why it takes so long to provide people in Ocean View and Masiphumelele with housing and land.
Neoliberalism has not only been unsuccessful in decreasing spatial inequalities but has also proven to exacerbate them (Theodore, 2017: 44-45). Besteman (2008: 16-17) also account for how the divides have become even greater between the poor (who are mainly black), and the wealthy in South Africa, and she sees the global capitalist economy and neoliberalism as the cause for this. This suggests that restitution for the disadvantaged and a decreasing of inequalities will never come about in Cape Town and in the Valley if neoliberalism will continue to guide the politicians. In the Valley it is evident that injustices have not been properly addressed and with the estates continuing to be built it seems as though inequalities are exacerbated, that the divides are deepening. Besteman (2008: 17) mentions how the inequalities and poverty generated by neoliberalism are considered normal, that there is no global moral that says that this is wrong. This is a problem because if it is seen as normal, nothing will be done about it.
People who live in the deprived communities of the Valley do not only have fewer opportunities but are also more subject to risks of various sorts, some of them environmental. This means that there is also an environmental justice concern here, because as Walker (2012: 1) explains, environmental justice is about some groups being discriminated by experiencing more environmental risks than others. The wetland area of Masiphumelele illustrates this very well. People have built their homes there but this is because they have nowhere else to go. Their lack of opportunities pushes them to expose themselves to severe risks like flooding, not by choice but by necessity. The overall condition in the wetland area but also other sections of the community is a health hazard. The overcrowded conditions could arguably be said to be an environmental injustice in itself, considering the risks it poses. These conditions become even more unjust due to the fact that at the other side of the wetland people live in an entirely different environment, in big houses on spacious plots surrounded by nature, and even having exclusive access to a lake (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017). Environmental justice and spatial justice are here deeply connected. Clearly the people living on the opposite side of the wetland area benefit from an environment that enhances their quality of life (Walker, 2012: 1), while people in Masiphumelele hardly get any environmental benefits. Not to forget, as Masiphumelele is mainly black and poor this is an environmental (in)justice where both class
35 and race are reasons for people being unevenly discriminated against. Regarding Ocean View it is more difficult to say if its residents experience any direct environmental injustice since many of the risks seem to relate to safety, but one can at least argue that they do not have an environment that is beneficial to them, as opposed to some of its neighbours.
The exposure of kaolin dust on communities neighbouring the Kommetjie Vineyards Estate development (Du Preez, 2019) may also be considered an environmental injustice. Even if this exposure is temporary, people affected by it might have to live with long-term health consequences (Du Preez, 2019). Here there may not be any obvious bias in exposure based on race and class considering the different income-groups and races in the area. However, since not only class and race is seen as factors for environmental discrimination but also for example gender and age (Walker, 2012: 2-3), and vulnerability being a factor, one could argue that children will probably be more affected by the kaolin dust because of their heightened sensitivity to pollution (Walker, 2012: 46), and possibly also women (Walker, 2012: 68). The vulnerability that plays into this can also mean that the poor people in the area are more affected than the wealthy (Walker, 2012: 106). These examples of both environmental justice related to unhealthy living conditions in the townships as well as from new developments goes to show that the Valley is not developing in a sustainable and healthy way.
Continuing on the environmental concerns, but from an ecological and not a social point of view, the ecological transition called Green Cape (WCG, 2012; WCG, 2014) revolves basically around knowing the value of natural resources and the need to not overuse them. Although there are aims to protect parts of it, the outlook on nature comes across as quite anthropocentric; it is nature in relation to human beings that is important. It is also very much centred on the economy, nature seem to be valued because the economy relies on it in different ways. This may have to do with the fact that OneCape2040 (2012) is focused on economic development, but economic growth is an explicitly stated priority in the PSDF (2014) as well. Even if nature does not seem to be so much valued for its own sake, it is important that the provincial government want to transition to a more sustainable use of nature’s resources. However, despite the aim of protecting nature from human made land transformation such as settlements (WCG, 2014: 41), new developments do not seem to have to comply to these objectives or at least only partly since pristine land is still being developed on (Baigrie & Ernstson, 2017), and this for housing people who do have options. This leads us to so called “smart growth”. This is considered to be an alternative to manage spatial growth (WCG, 2014: 100), with less sprawl and more development in existing settlements (WCG, 2014: 78). However, even with the aim of prioritising brownfields development (WCG, 2014: 32, 75), developers are apparently still allowed to use ‘greenfields’ to build estates on which are meant for the wealthy part of the population. It seems as though being a neoliberal city does not only mean that the interests of the wealthy are prioritised over the needs of the poor (McDonald, 2008: 153), but also that the interests of the wealthy take precedence over the ecological sustainability, which seems to be the case in the Valley.
Even with initiatives that appear to be more sustainable there are question marks regarding to what extent this is actually true. Developers are trying to sell houses on the estates by
36 portraying them as ecologically benevolent and/or how they contribute to lift poor communities (Baigrie & Ernstson 2017; Norris, 2005), but the sustainability claims appears a bit diluted. Selling in a development as a way to lift poorer communities in the area seem like an excuse for actually occupying land that could have been used to house residents of these communities that are in great need of housing. Something similar goes for claiming an estate is “green”; while these estates may take some ecological considerations in development, it would probably be more sustainable to not develop on some of this land.
The provincial government want to include people in a number of ways, for example in planning, housing delivery, and in taking part in society as a whole (WCG, 2014). This could be a way to empower people. The Provincial government thinks that the public interest should get a greater say in planning (WCG, 2014: 75), and that the public and private sector have a better knowledge about where development is heading (WCG, 2014: 94). However, this means that even if the public interest will have a bigger influence the want to include the private sector more makes it questionable to what extent the public interest will be considered, and if it will be enough to transform the unjust spatial pattern. As shown in the results section, the private sector usually stays away from the poorer areas where there is a real need of investments, and instead chooses to invest closer to economic centres (Moore, 2017). Also, as McDonald (2008: 211-212) points out, private interests have already had a considerable impact on urban planning in Cape Town, and in making public places become private.
Participation, making people feel part of solving issues, is used in different ways in the Valley, while building houses or trying to enhance the relationship between the communities and the City (First Ocean View homes handed over, 2014; Ntongana, 2017a). However, the participation suggested by the local government is not always the kind of participation the residents of the poor communities want, and they are demanding more (Ntongana, 2017b). All forms of participation are not participative in a constructive way, and it is important to ask if participation takes place on people’s terms or if it is made to suit the City’s and/or the Province’s interests.
While initiatives aimed at including and lifting poorer communities and taking environmental responsibility are welcomed, one has to ask whether or not these different initiatives in a way work against their spoken purpose, if the efforts for change consolidate the status quo because it prevents neoliberalism and other destructive forces from being questioned and for real change to take place.
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6. Conclusions The aim of this thesis was to explore how the unjust spatial patterns inherited by apartheid are managed at the provincial level in the Western Cape, and how it plays out and are experienced by people living in the Fish Hoek Valley, Cape Town. The first question was: “How is the Western Cape Government planning to transform the province’s unsustainable spatial pattern?” The answer to this is that the WCG (2014) wants to change the unsustainable spatial pattern by giving the poor and disadvantaged more opportunities and a better quality of life. It wants to make sure critical biodiversity and agricultural land are protected from urban growth and that environmental resources are handled sustainably. The aim is for spatial growth to become “smarter” with less outward expansion on ‘greenfields’.
For the second and third question: “How does spatial injustice play out in the Valley?” and “How are people in the Valley experiencing the current spatial pattern?” the answer is that the Valley is still very segregated based on race and class, with great disparities in housing quality, living spaces and opportunities between the wealthier and the poorer communities. The residents of Ocean View and Masiphumelele are restricted in many ways and there is a huge need for housing in both communities. Their surrounding environment is unhealthy from several perspectives and they get few environmental benefits. The persistent injustices mean that the relationship between the communities and the City is weak, with a lot of distrust as a result of broken promises and insufficient action to address the needs of the poor. This has resulted in people demanding more transparency and participation on their own terms. Regarding the ecological sustainability in The Valley it seems as though nature is taken into consideration when it does not interfere to much with economic objectives, and hence it is not a priority. The development initiatives that are supposed to contribute to change do not appear to generate any deeper, structural change. One could even argue that they are counterproductive; they obscure the neoliberal agenda and work against a questioning of its negative effects on the poor and the environment.
The Western Cape Provincial Spatial Development Framework (2014) analysed in this study appear to be quite neoliberal in its approach. Reflecting on previous research about neoliberalism and what it has meant in South Africa and Cape Town one has to ask if the aim for social redress, spatial justice and environmental sustainability can ever be realised if the politicians continue to let neoliberalism have such a dominating role. If the Western Cape Government and the City of Cape Town are serious about redressing past and present injustices and give everyone a decent life they have to question and scrutinize the effects of the political path that has been taken since the end of apartheid. However, while much point to the destructive forces of neoliberalism it is possible that neoliberalism is only part of the problem and further research could investigate if there are also other reasons for the unjust spatial patterns to be so persistent. It would also be interesting to see if there are any bottom- up initiatives that better could address some of the challenges that people in the poorer communities face.
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